


decayed from the start

by verity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Casual Sex, Chance Meetings, College, Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, POV Bisexual Character, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 23:34:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek's on Facebook. He's an architecture grad student, matriculated with Allison's class. The toothy smile in his profile picture makes him look like a robot.</p><p>"Derek does look like a robot," Stiles says when she calls him so they can Facebook-stalk Derek together. "But, you know, the Summer Glau kind. Like he could do ballet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	decayed from the start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starbolin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbolin/gifts), [whiskey_in_tea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskey_in_tea/gifts).



> Thanks to Ashe, Luz, and Scout for the encouragement!

St. Louis smells like shit in the spring.

"It's the gingko trees on campus," Allison's roommate Helen explains. Helen's pre-med, slogging through all the freshman washout courses; in between studying for exams, she drags Allison to Pride Alliance meetings and mainlines rice out of the cooker she keeps under her lofted bed. "If you go up to the Loop, everything smells like jizz."

Allison looks up from her Western Civ reading. "Jizz trees?"

"Jizz trees." Helen shakes her head. "Fuckin' nature."

—

The jizz trees are Bradford pears, boughs heavy with five-petaled white blossoms. Their odor is like a ghost on Allison's tongue as she walks down Delmar, sour and thick.

Allison hasn't fucked any boys since she left Scott and Isaac back in Beacon Hills. Instead, a string of girls has trickled through the room Allison and Helen share, their mouths yielding, their skin soft. Allison loves girls, loves fucking them just as much as she loves yielding under their soft hands. The day after she hooked up with Claire for the first time, she wandered around campus in a daze, cheeks flushed, skin hypersensitive beneath the soft knit of her dress, cunt a hot throb between her legs. She felt like the tulips the university plants every spring to lure in prospective freshmen with deep pockets: bright and new, imbued with seductive power.

"Hey," Helen says when Allison gets to St. Louis Bubble Tea. "I got you taro with extra boba. Get me crab rangoon."

Allison drops her bag next to the table. "Marry me."

—

Once a week, Allison calls Lydia, commiserates over the difficulty of finding a good yoga studio close to campus and a legit magical supplier. The supernatural elements of their life have gone from menacing to mundane, even if pack politics led Lydia to pick Caltech over MIT and kept Allison out of Sarah Lawrence. Some days the last few years seem like scenes out of a terrible movie.

She's stretching in her chair when she glances out the window next to her study carrel on the second floor of the library and she sees him.

—

Allison puts her head down and tries not to think about it. On Friday, she backs up Lexi against the door to her coveted single and eats Lexi out until she's keening. Someone next door bangs on the wall; Allison frees up a hand and bangs back.

"What's gotten into you?" Lexi says afterwards, pushing Allison's hair back from her face. They met in Intro to Archaeology last semester, stayed up late cramming for the final and ended up making out in the library stacks on Level B. No one was looking for anything in the oversize section at 1AM. "Not that I'm complaining."

Allison stands up, lets Lexi cup her jaw and kiss her wet, swollen lips. "I don't know," she lies.

—

On Sunday, Allison heads up from campus to the Loop to buy a few records and check out some of the cute dresses in the boutique windows before she meets Helen for lunch. The pear trees are in full bloom overhead, their skunky scent unavoidable. Allison catches her grimace reflected in the plate glass window of Subterranean Books before she looks beyond the lettering and sees Derek Hale behind the counter, deep in conversation with a customer.

The sight of him goes through her like an arrow: a fast, piercing shock.

—

If Derek wants her, he'll track her, he'll find her. He's a werewolf and St. Louis is a small city. Allison's little slice of it is smaller yet: she lives on campus, hasn't brought her car out yet, makes the same circuit from dorm to class to library to class to dorm daily. She comes up to the loop for Chipotle or Thai or bubble tea a few times a week.

"Spill," Helen says mid-week. They're eating a late dinner in the cafe downstairs from the dining hall, the one that's open 24 hours and has dubiously warmed pizza with flaccid cheese on offer no matter the time of day. "Are you sick? Are you in love?"

Allison chokes on her iced tea. "What?"

"That's what my mom always asks when I look worried. And whether I'm constipated," Helen says. "I have tea for that."

"I'm not _constipated_ , God," Allison says.

Helen grins. "Who is she?"

"Nobody," Allison says, jabbing her fork into her overcooked pasta.

—

Allison writes her Baroque Art term paper on Artemisia Gentileschi. She likes the contrast between the pale plumpness of Judith's arms and the grim intent of her face in _Judith Beheading Holofernes_ , the surety of the blade in her hands as her devoted maidservant holds Holofernes down. There's something weirdly soothing about Biblical justice being meted out, like how Allison can marathon hours of _Law & Order: SVU_ at a time. Real life is so much wilder and weirder.

After she drops her paper off, Allison runs into Derek outside the art library. It's not a figurative run or a graceful one: she full-body slams into him, drops her bag and falls on her knees. "I'm sorry," she says, fingers scrabbling on the floor at her loose pencils and paper, stray hair scrunchies, a half-empty bag of Sun Chips from a vending machine. "I—"

"Allison?" Derek's face is haloed, washed out by the harsh florescent light; she can barely see his brows knit together. He looks like a painting.

"No." Allison shoves everything hastily back into her bag. "No."

—

Derek's on Facebook. He's an architecture grad student, matriculated with Allison's class. The toothy smile in his profile picture makes him look like a robot.

"Derek does look like a robot," Stiles says when she calls him so they can Facebook-stalk Derek together. "But, you know, the Summer Glau kind. Like he could do ballet."

Allison opens the bottom drawer of desk with her toes, grabs a bottle of polish at random. Yay, Glitter Fantasia. "I didn't know he went to college," she says, wedging her phone between cheek and shoulder while she fumbles with the bottle top.

"Columbia '10," Stiles says appreciatively. "Nice."

Derek's been tagged in hundreds of photos, and Allison has permissions enough to see a handful. There's a few of Derek goofing around at a party, red plastic cup in hand, and more recent one where he has his arm around Cora. Allison devotes a moment to appreciating Cora's bikini before she takes in the rosy sunset, Derek's board shorts, the surfboards jackknifed behind them in the sand. There's something about his posture that looks—loose. Soft.

Allison closes out of her browser before she starts in on her nails. "Tell me about Portland," she says to Stiles.

—

The next time Allison sees Derek, she's doing the walk of shame in her heels and dress from last night, evening bag in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee from Meshuggah in the other. Her hair's a mess and she probably smells like she took a bath in Nadine. Allison does not give one single fuck.

"Good morning," she says while he fumbles with his keys in front of Subterranean Books.

"Yeah, you too," Derek says absently. Then he glances up, blinks at her. "Hey."

In the cool light of morning, Derek still looks like a painting, his bone structure sharp and impossibly precise, his hair perfectly smoothed waves. He's not delicate, but he's slender without his alpha bulk. "See you around," Allison says.

—

Allison is staying in St. Louis for the summer and working at the library. She didn't talk about it with Scott, just her dad; he had to co-sign on the lease for the apartment she'll be sharing with Helen. For now, Helen is going off nurture the next generation of Girl Scouts. "I'm going to miss you," Helen fake-sobs against Allison's shoulder. "I'm going to write you a million letters about my sad life full of bug spray and screaming children and—"

"I put some dental dams in your bag," Allison says. "The other counselors can't all be straight."

When she moves in, the new label's already up on the mailbox: _A. Argent & H. Wei._ It's so official. Allison's killed monsters, tried to kill people who looked like them, but at no moment did she feel as adult as she does picking up the keys from the leasing agency. This is it. This is—something.

—

The summer starts slow and seems to go on forever. Allison is reduced to reading through the archives of Television Without Pity while she checks out books and processes MOBIUS and ILL items for the few students left on campus. She's at work from 2PM to 10PM four nights a week, and she emerges from the refrigerator chill of the library into the suffocatingly humid night air with nothing waiting but her lonely apartment. Allison gets into the habit of eating at Chipotle or Kayak's after work; they're still open, and it's something to do. On her days off she mostly lies in front of the air conditioner in her bedroom window and dozes. It hits 101F every afternoon for twelve days in a row.

The last day of the heat wave, Derek is waiting for Allison when she gets out of work. She thrusts her sweater into his arms—it's fucking cold in there—and takes off, walking toward her apartment, walking toward—anything, she doesn't know. "Are you going to try to intimidate me?" she says. "Is this where you—"

"I'm not a danger to you," Derek says. "You're the one who—"

Allison spins on her heel and Derek stumbles, trying not to run into her this time. She puts her hand on his shoulder to steady him. "You don't know what I'm capable of," she says. "You weren't there."

Derek raises his eyebrows. "Is that a threat?"

"You weren't _there_ ," Allison says. "You left us."

The nemeton was alive and broadcasting for seven months. Stiles almost died. Aiden did. Peter tried to kill all of them again. The pack fell into the middle of a decades-long feud between the Weavers in Redding and the Harrisons in Sacramento that fucked up all their college options and Allison kissed Lydia in the basement of the building where Stiles was being held hostage; they don't talk about it.

"I did," Derek says.

Allison tightens her grip on his shirt.

—

Their feet are loud on the marble-topped front stairs that lead to Allison's apartment. Allison hasn't brought anyone back to the apartment yet. Her skin is buzzing; her head feels strangely clear. She's inviting a wolf into her home, her _home_. Again.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she says to Derek as she locks the door behind them. "But I want to."

"Would that feel good?" Derek gives her an appraising look. .

This morning, Allison put her hair into a ponytail instead of washing it, and she's wearing a floral blouse over yoga pants with a bleach stain on the hem that no one can see beneath the circulation desk. She straightens her spine and lifts her chin. "Not good enough," she says. "Do you want to fuck me?"

"Why?" Derek says.

"Is that going to change your answer?" she says.

After a moment, Derek shakes his head. "No, I mean—" Unexpectedly, he looks at the floor and blushes.

"You don't have to," Allison backpedals. "I don't—I'm sorry, I didn't think—"

Derek reaches out and touches her, just a soft brush of his fingers against her upper arm. "I'm not fragile," he says. "You're not the only one who's—"

"What?" Allison says.

Instead of explaining, Derek leans in and puts his mouth to her pulse, breathes hot against the spot on her neck that makes Allison weak in the knees. For the first time in months, Allison feels small. She used to like this, she used to—

She shoves Derek down onto the couch. "You don't have to seduce me," she says, pushing her yoga pants down her hips. "Just—don't pretend, okay? I want to get off, and you're—"

Derek's hands go for his belt buckle. "Hot?" he says.

"Available," Allison says.

Derek has a condom in his wallet, which she watches him carefully roll on before she climbs onto his lap. He braces Allison's hips between his hands as she sinks down on his dick; she can't hold in the hiss that escapes from between her teeth. It's been months since she had anything as big as Derek inside her and he feels so _good_. Allison feels sore already, stretched around him, and she just wants more. She moves down and up and down again, tries to start some kind of tentative rhythm.

"I want to kiss you," Derek says. "Can I?"

Allison shrugs. "Go for it."

Derek kisses sweetly, like no one's ever taught him what that pretty mouth of his is for. Allison thrusts down onto him and licks the seam of his lips with her tongue until he moans into her mouth. He keeps moving his hands up, from her hips to her waist to her breasts to tease her taut nipples, breaking off their kiss to lave them with the flat of his tongue. He puts his free hand between them to give Allison something to grind against, and it only takes a few minutes for her to come, shaking and tightening around him until he spills inside her.

Allison pulls off of him with a loud squelch, thighs trembling. "Um," she says after a minute, yanking on her discarded shirt. "I'll—you want some water?"

"Sure," Derek says, sounding dazed.

—

Allison spends a few minutes in the kitchen freaking out, thinking about how her only tie to Beacon Hills here is in the next room and she just fucked him, and—by the time she comes back out into the living room again, she's in fullblown panic mode. But Derek's still there, on her couch, still wearing the condom, come leaking out on his thigh. He's _asleep_.

What an asshole.

She has to go back into the kitchen so she can laugh without waking Derek, laugh until she's sitting on the kitchen floor in no pants with her head buried in her hands.

—

"You totally fucked a guy on our couch," Helen says within ten minutes of her arrival. She's not a werewolf, but she has the nose for it. "Really? Allison?"

Allison ducks her head. "Sorry."

"It's fine, dude." Helen flops down onto the offending cushions. "You can bang all the guys you want as long as our couch doesn't smell like jizz. Was he hot? Please tell me he was hot."

"He looks like a model," Allison says, lips curving into a smile.

Helen holds up her hand for a high five. "Good job," she says. "My camp girlfriend looked like Hayley Mills. Fuckin' weirdest sex of my life."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
